26: THE PERFECT DROP — ELITE TORANA RACER
SEAN FOWLER LIKES FINE WINE AND FAST CARS. HIS LATEST CREATION IS THE PERFECT COMBINATION OF BOTH
While he may deal with rocks, rubble, and dirt during the day, Sean Fowler has developed a taste for the finer things in life. While some people favour beer, and some favour spirits, red wine is Sean’s vice of choice — well, red wine and fast cars. Regular readers will be familiar with Sean’s name, most likely from his exploits in Central Muscle Cars (CMC), where, although he may not be the fastest man on track, you can almost guarantee he’ll be the one having the best time. Win or lose, Sean’s often seen to be ecstatic as he crosses the finish line in his SLR-replica Torana sedan — it’s a refreshing sight these days when everyone’s pushing harder and harder for victory. The sedan is not a bad piece of kit; in fact, it’s probably one of the best presented race cars ever built in the country, even though it’s been on track for a few seasons now and had its fair share of racing incidents along the way.
While Sean never really thought about selling the car, when a friend and fellow racer started putting heat on him to let the car go, it did get him thinking. We all know SLR5000s are cool, right? But an A9X hatch is even cooler. Soon this thought was discussed with the sedan’s builder, Rodney Heads of Heads Racing Supplies, and, having owned and built various Torana hatches before, Rodney agreed. The idea soon developed further, and Sean reached the point where he would be happy to let the sedan go, but only if he could replace it with the ultimate hatch.
The difficulty, of course, is finding a decent hatch as a starting point these days. Many have succumbed to rust, while those which have survived have succumbed to appreciating prices. And, while Sean had the ability to buy a finely restored one as a starting point, he really didn’t want or need to. Instead, some hunting around led him to a shell in Perth, Australia.
Being of a ‘distinguished age’, he knew that, as much as he enjoys his racing, this car would really be his last full-on race car build before he called it a day. So, with that in mind, the decision was made to go all out, no expense spared. Besides this, his only other instruction to the team at
Heads Racing Supplies was it must be the colour of his favourite pinot noir — something that Cody at Triple C Cars was able to take care of easily.
It’s not often that a race car builder gets free rein over a vehicle, but this was also far from Rodney’s first build, so he knew exactly the recipe that was required to make sure it was money well spent. As always, the build began with the shell being stripped to its naked glory before any fabrication could begin. In this instance, there was plenty of fabrication required. Interestingly, due to CMC’s minimum weight limits, the team didn’t spend time removing weight from it; if they had, they would have needed to reinstate it anyway. Of course, that roll cage
would still be constructed from chromoly and built in such a way to maximize both driver safety and structural rigidity. This theme was carried through beneath the vehicle, where the chassis rails were strengthened up too, with additional bars ensuring that all pickup points remain where they should. As with Heads’ other Torana builds, custom A-arms were fabricated in house for the front suspension, and a custom three-link added out the back. The stock Torana diff is long gone, as a Ford nine-inch was deemed far more up to the task. Now inside the factory diff casing are Winters axles, which are matched to fully floating and cambered Endevour Engineering hubs. Forward of the nineinch is a 3.5-inch-diameter Mark Williams aluminium drive shaft complete with billet yokes. By now, the inclusion of this type of high-end componentry should have led you to the conclusion that the car is not lacking for power … and this would be a very accurate assumption.
The ultimate in circuit-racing LS-based engines was ordered for the car, pieced together by
Ray Neilson around a Dart LS Next block. The bore and stroke measurements combine to create an impressive 393ci of displacement, and the compression is handled by JE pistons. Oliver rods and a Crower crank swing away underneath, and a dry-sump oiling system makes sure that they’re all well lubricated, even at extreme rpm. The top end features 12-degree Air Flow Research (AFR) Mongoose heads, which have been port matched to an Edelbrock Victor Junior intake manifold. There’s no fancy fuel-injection system here; instead, an 850cfm Holley HP Ultra carb is in charge of the vital air–fuel ratios. It can drink fuel at a fair rate too, which is why the fuel system consists of a pair of Bosch lift pumps that feed a swirl pot through braided lines. From here, a single Quick Fuel pump sends the good stuff forward to the engine, where it meets its demise thanks to an MSD-based ignition system. Custom fabricated headers extract the spent gasses and shoehorn them into a single three-inch system that exits the side of the vehicle. While straight pipes would have been nice, trackside sound checks would soon have seen the car off the track, so, instead, a custom muffler was created to keep it below the limit.
As you’d expect with a car at this level, plenty of attention has gone into the cooling system to ensure that, while it’s out storming around the track, Sean can be confident that the vital stats will remain where they should be. Setrab was the brand of choice for the oil cooler, while a crossflow radiator was selected to fill the gap up front. Inside the cabin, you’ll find a floor-mounted Tilton pedal box, and the left-hand pedal is responsible
for engaging a 7.5-inch triple-plate Tilton clutch inside the G-force GSR four-speed gearbox’s bellhousing. The centre pedal, on the other hand, sends the six-piston Brembo front calipers and fourpiston rear calipers clamping down on the seriously thick brake rotors. Up front, the rotors measure in at 328mm, and on the rear they’re not much smaller. The 17-inch wheels that are dictated by CMC are the only reason the rotors aren’t even bigger. When Rodney’s not busy building race cars, he’s busy as the Simmons Wheels importer for New Zealand, so it goes without saying that the wheels are straight from the Simmons catalogue. Keen eyes will notice that they’re the less common OM model, a model that was discontinued for many years before only recently going back into production. That’s a good thing too, as there are few wheels around that look as good on a Torana hatch as a genuine set of OMs. The CMC-classlimit
275/40R17 Hankook rubber is wrapped around the 17x10.5-inch rollers all round.
With steering-wheel buttons for all required actions and a hoard of AutoMeter gauges behind the Woodward steering column, the cockpit isn’t a bad place to be. Two Racetech seats and matching five-point harnesses mean that at some stage someone will be lucky enough to find themselves in the passenger seat.
At the time of writing, the car’s only just beginning to hit the track for shakedown laps, and it’ll take a bit of tweaking of the adjustable sway bars and Bilstein shock’s settings to get it exactly how Sean likes it, but, before long, we’re sure that he’ll be out there having the time of his life behind the wheel. Whether you’re a chequered-flag winner or last across the line, when you’re lucky enough to be behind the wheel of a car as good as this, you’re winning either way!